“People in this field definitely need somebody to stick up for them, because it’s a little easy to get steamrolled.”
By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent
It’s been about two years since Will Braddum was fired from his position at Sinse marijuana cultivation and manufacturing facility in south St. Louis, Missouri, along with more than a dozen others.
For him, the marijuana industry had been a career, but he’d seen how “cutthroat” the corporate side can be, he said, and how vulnerable he and other employees were without representation.
“The only way to pad myself from human resources is to cultivate a union movement and talk to my co-workers about job security,” Braddum said in an interview with The Independent in 2023.
It’s been more than two years since Braddum and other Sinse employees voted in an election to unionize. The majority of the ballots had remained sealed because BeLeaf Medical, the facility’s parent company, challenged them—a challenge the company recently lost.
On Friday, the ballots were finally opened, revealing a long-awaited 11-3 vote in favor of unionization.
“It’s kind of like bittersweet,” Braddum said soon after the ballots were revealed Friday. “It’s really nice to have changed the industry for the better, even if the people over at Sinse don’t decide to go in the direction of unionizing and protecting their own rights, at least they have the opportunity now. It sets a precedent.”
BeLeaf Medical’s owners have been arguing since 2023 that their “post-harvest workers” don’t have the right to unionize because they’re agricultural workers.
Earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board, which is the highest administrative body on labor conflicts and sets national policy on unionizing, rejected the company’s argument that employees are agricultural workers.
Agricultural workers are excluded from the National Labor Relations Act, the federal law that protects most private-sector employees’ right to unionize without fear of retaliation.
“We agree with the regional [NLRB] director, for the reasons provided in her decision, that none of the workers employed in the classifications at issue here are agricultural laborers under the secondary definition of agriculture,” the national board members wrote.
The Sinse employees whose union votes BeLeaf questioned largely made pre-rolls, entered data on computers and processed dried marijuana into finished products, the board found.
Douglas Purvis, BeLeaf Medical’s director of human resources, told the Independent in an emailed statement that the company respects “the outcome and the wishes of our employees.”
“BeLeaf Medical is committed to bargaining in good faith,” Purvis said, “and look forward to working together toward a mutually acceptable agreement.”
Several Sinse workers who organized the union effort and voted in the election gathered at a brewery in St. Louis to celebrate Friday evening.
“Obviously, I wish the ballots would have been opened a little sooner,” said Scotti Iman, who worked at Sinse for more than two years. “I think this kind of shows that people in this field definitely need somebody to stick up for them, because it’s a little easy to get steamrolled.”
Iman was among the original organizers, but he left his position to take care of a family member before the election. Iman said several workers made “sacrifices” to get it done and that Sean Shannon, a lead organizer with UFCW Local 655 who has been working with the Sinse employees since fall 2023, “worked his butt off to get this over the finish line.”
“The votes are out and in the open now,” Iman said. “That’s awesome.”
Shannon said the next step is to send a request to start setting bargaining dates, which the union plans to do Monday.
Laura Kelley, president of UFCW Local 655, said the BeLeaf election shows why unions were first put in place.
“The most important thing we have is our voice,” Kelley said, “and our attorney did a great job of making sure that their voices were heard. Labor has been around a long time, and I think sometimes people forget what we actually stand for—and we stand for that voice.”
